


Fade

by Enchantable



Series: Search and Recover [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Major Character Injury, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:53:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is one battle Raleigh must fight on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I just want some continuation of the hurt!Raleigh 'verse because I'm just evil like that and your writing is so awesome!

He dreams he’s burning. 

Fire is everywhere as Gipsy burns miles and miles under the sea. He wouldn’t care at all but he can see Mako above him. The rig is jammed, just below the escape pod. He thinks he can hear her shouting but he isn’t sure. He has to get to her. He doesn’t care if he burns, but he has to get to her. The braces on his wrist lock though and he can’t get them free. 

"Mako!" he shouts her name, desperate as the flames get higher, “Mako, no!" 

The last word extends into the waking world, turning into a hoarse shout of pain.

He’s not surrounded by flames, he’s surrounded by ice.

For a second he thinks maybe he’s hallucinating, but the taste of canned air is heavy on his tongue. What’s burning isn’t the Conn-Pod of the Jaeger. What’s burning is him. The ice is packed around him as they try to bring his fever down. Without the hospital gown on he can see the bandages that cover his torso. Neural overload, the circuts in the suit can’t take it. These are worse than last time, he can feel that and a groan escapes his lips, alerting the doctors. 

"Mr. Becket," one says and he tries to focus but can’t, “Mr. Becket!"

He wants to tell them not to call him that. It’s Raleigh, like the city, but the thought fades as he does. 

He doesn’t dream but you aren’t supposed to when you’re sedated. He drifts in his own head and the silence is overwhelming. He hates it. His mind is a wrecked mess but he selfishly wishes Mako would come in, just so he doesn’t have to be so alone. Immediately he feels like an ass because Mako has her own healing to do. So he finds a memory of two people he’ll never meet fussing over him and clings to it for all he’s worth.

When he comes to the doctors are discussing putting him back on the ventilator. 

It’s hard to breath, harder than it should be but the idea of having a tube down his throat makes him try to open his mouth. The only person who notices is Mako who immediately shoves the doctors aside and comes to his bed. Emotion is so naked in her eyes that he finds it even harder to inhale. He sees a tear shine in them and his fingers itch to wipe it away but he can’t move his hand. She can and when she pushes her fingers through his tangled hair he doesn’t think anything’s ever felt so good. 

"You have an infection," she tells him softly, “from the burns." 

He tries to nod but he doesn’t want to disturb her hand. She closes her eyes, fighting to control her emotion and he realizes what she isn’t saying. The infection isn’t just from the burns on his circut suit. 

It’s from the cauterization she did to save his life. 

He wants to tell her that it’s alright. That she did it to save his life and he gets it. That it’s so much better if he dies here. That it’s been so long since someone did something so stupid and brave for him. But the most he can do is brush his finger against her hand as the sedatives they push through him take hold. His eyes roll up as her hand covers his and he fades away. 

He dreams of her again. 

She’s standing under the rain, but there’s no umbrella. And it isn’t rain. It’s electric blue and when it drops onto her skin it hisses, leaving rivulets of burned flesh and blood in it’s wake. She looks up at him and everything in him is screaming to pull her under the shelter but he can’t move. All he can do is watch as the blue blood hisses down her face. It’s burning her, but he can feel the skin being burned off him. 

"Raleigh!" 

His eyes snap open to see Mako staring down at him, horror painted on her face. She’s dressed in the stuff doctors wear, but her eyes are bright. over the mask that covers her face. His fingers itch to reach up and touch her, but the waves are pulling at him and the most he can do is twitch his finger in the iron grip that holds them before they suck him under again. 

Mako holds his eyes for as long as she can before they roll up and he falls unconscious again. Everything in her screams except her lips which are so firmly clenched between her teeth she thinks she might bight them off. But if she screams, if she cracks, they’ll make her wait outside and she can’t. She may kill him, but she can’t let him die alone. 

Her fingers tighten on him as she looks at his sunken eyes. He’s wasting away in the hospital bed and the tragedy of it is only eclipsed by the guilt she feels. She knows that she made the best choice, the lesser of the two evils. But there is only so much the human body can take. Her fingers tighten on his hand as she wishes with everything in her that she could give her strength to him. 

She feels like a ghost. 

She’s always loved her shadows, from the moment someone first turned a spotlight on her she’s wanted it to go elsewhere. Now though she feels like she’s nothing more than a spectre. She trails after them when they move his bed back to the room they have him in. He doesn’t stir, doesn’t even reacted and her throat tightens. Raleigh is an insomniac, he’s a light sleeper. He wakes when someone walks past the door, immediately ready for whatever adventure they bring. 

He doesn’t lay there still and pale with an oxygen mask over his face and a machine assuring her his heart still beats. She sits in the chair next to his bed and stares at his features. The way his lips part, the way his brow occasionally furrows. She’s weak and she lies to herself, saying that she is keeping watch over a fellow pilot. She knows that isn’t the case.

She’s trying to memorize him. 

She wants to remember everything. If she is a torrent of blue and grey then Raleigh is the bright amber and fiery orange of Gipsy’s core. He is fire. And Mako doesn’t want to watch that fire go out. But she is like water and the harder she tries the more his flames seem to sputter. They are supposed to have a dialogue but she is screaming and he—he isn’t making a sound. 

Their balance is gone. 

His heart stops the next day. 

The machine speeds up and then wails an alarm and for a moment Mako things they are in perfect sync because she’s certain her own heart has stopped. She watches as the medics swarm him, ripping things away and getting other things in place. His body jumps with electricity though his features don’t change at all. When the machine picks up the rhythm again she holds herself there for two hours before she collapses into the chair next to him. 

That night Herc pulls up another chair and they keep watch together. 

In her dreams he’s fine. His hair’s a bit longer and he’s still a bit thin, but he smiles warmly at her. He wraps his arms around her and presses their mouths together. She can taste the candy on his tongue when it slips into her mouth and shivers when his hands settle low on her back. He breathes her name over and over and she never wants him to stop. 

She wakes with tears on her cheeks. Her silently hands her a tissue and they don’t talk about it. 

It takes two days for him to open his eyes again. 

He feels like he’s coming out of the drift. Except instead of metal and sparks it smells like antiseptic. He remembers being afraid of something but he can’t remember what. When he cracks open an eye Mako is a dark blur to his left and someone else is on his right. He wants to talk but he can’t remember how. He tries to fight but it’s like holding a Jaeger with his pinky and he slips away. 

It’s two in the morning when he jerks awake, truly awake. 

It’s with a sharp inhale that turns into a choked cough as he struggles to breathe. Hands are behind him, sitting him up and when he falls back it isn’t on the bed. Even in the antiseptic can’t hide Mako. She holds him as he struggles to breathe but she doesn’t shout for help. Everything hurts. He doesn’t think a slow death should hurt this much. 

"Yancy didn’t hurt this much," he pants out and he can feel Mako glare at him.

"You aren’t him," she says and he tries to look up at her but she holds him firmly where he can breathe, “there are no Kaiju," she says, “you don’t have an excuse." 

He doesn’t know whether to laugh or glare, so he settles for dragging another painful breath through his lungs. Mako adjusts him and pushes his hair back. He leans against her shoulder, fighting to catch his breath. She tightens her hold on him and he closes his eyes, leaning against her. 

"Thank you," he whispers, “thank you for giving me a reason again."

"Stop it," she orders and she sounds so fucking young he can only think of that blue coat and the red shoe.

"Thank you," he repeats. 

He wants to apologize, but his tongue is too heavy so he just leans back against her and feels the steady thump of her heart in his spine. He focuses on that with everything in him. He tries to memorize it. He holds the memory tight, if he ever drifts again he knows it will be a R.A.B.I.T. 

He drifts away.


End file.
